Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Dominic is a product of a growing “diaper-free” movement founded on the belief that babies are born with an instinctive ability to signal when they have to answer nature’s call. Parents who practice the so-called “elimination communication” learn to read their children’s body language to help them recognize the need, and they mimic the sounds that a child associates with the bathroom.

Erinn Klatt began toilet training her son at birth and said he has not wet his bed at night since he was six months old.

Somehow I equate this with the baby sign language movement, i.e, teaching your baby simple signs to communicate things such as “hungry,” “more,” “all done,” “drink,” and so forth. I tend to agree with the experts that teaching sign language is easily overdone and interferes with vocal communication development.

But what is fascinating is how both of these methods of supra-early developmental methods reveals the capabilities of infants. It is tempting to think of babies as essential blobs of people who are incredibly cute, but nonetheless inferior and incapable of thought and genuine human interaction. The smiles of a three-month-old melt the heart, but it’s easy to wonder just how much thought is happening.

Stories like this disabuse us of such superior notions, and remind us of the great truth that babies are not so different than any other person created in God’s image. Their techniques are crude and undeveloped, but babies know and learn and think. They can even deceive, as every parent knows instinctually.

It makes you wonder just how much Baby Jack is taking in. Poor guy. Lord have mercy on me!

1
comments
:

He is taking in a lot more than we give him credit for. When he babbles, I really thing he is telling us off for not letting him climb on every piece of furniture we own. Poor child. Part monkey, part land mine: Lord have mercy on his forehead!